Anyone here who does NOT celebrate Thanksgiving?

[Scott Lee]

I'm just curious, and no this is not a match to a fuse.

My wife is indigenous and very vocal about the atrocities committed by Columbus and so many other colonizers (in fact she educated me about so much of it). In short, it should be obvious why we make a point of not celebrating it. Does anyone else here at DU do the same, or have other reasons for not buying into the yearly tryptophan overdose? Do you do something alternative, or have a similar family get together at another time of year?

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Canadians celebrate it earlier, and differently

Am I right, or am I right, eh?

--bkl

[glarius]

2. You're right....Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving 2nd Monday in October

:loveya:

[Valerie5555]

9. Second that emotion for we already celebrated it in October and

Britishers have something called "Home Harvest Day" I think.

[hussar]

21. Harvest festival I believe old bean

[Interrobang]

14. And, IIRC, for different reasons.

I don't think the whole apocryphal "Pilgrim Dinner" thing means much to Canadians. To us, in general, I think Thanksgiving is more like a harvest festival.

Personally, I try not to do ideology with my holidays, except for May Day, which I don't get off anyway (although when I have a job, I have been known to wear a red shirt and black pants and my nifty red-and-black striped socks!). If I did, then I'd suffer through *all* the holidays which I'm not keen on celebrating but do anyway because of family obligations, and that would make Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, et al even worse than they already are. I mostly do it for the food (or, in the case of Christmas, giving and receiving gifts). Incidentally, I'm going to have to add a whole 'nother roster of holidays which I can do ideology-free, though, because my fiance's Jewish. He's sending me a Hannukah present (my first ever!); I feel so special! ;-)

[saline]

3. hate the history, eat the food

I know that the school taught "history" is essentially crap and I'm going to have to bite my tongue if my uncle starts talking about it to his young kids tommorow. Still I think the ideas that have been projected as behind it are ok (brotherhood, helping those in need). In addition since learning the history I've realized the holiday can be used as a remembrance of those that were slaughtered and less a reverence of their killers.

Tommorow I will be thankful that I can recognize that atrocities were committed and must be atoned for and that I can do something to do that. But I'm going to have to eat to continue this fight.

[dreissig]

4. I Don't Give Thanks

Thanksgiving is not one of my holidays. Christmas isn't, either. I observe New Year's by buying a new calendar.

Although I'm not Jewish, I take note of the major holidays. For example, I get very serious on Yom Kippur. I don't know why.

[parasim]

5. I was reading up on some of those atrocities today...

... and I almost got sick to my stomach. From now on I can only see it as a day of mourning. I can surely see why you would not want to celebrate it.

It is so unfortunate that such a good holiday which is all about giving thanks for what we have, stemmed from such an ugly time in our nation's history.

[Mika]

6. Then you'l like this one from William Burroughs

A Thanksgiving Prayer
by William S. Burroughs

Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts.
Thanks for a continent to despoil and poison.
Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger.
Thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin leaving the carcasses to rot.
Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes.
Thanks for the American dream, To vulgarize and to falsify until the bare lies shine through.
Thanks for the KKK.
For nigger-killin' lawmen, feelin' their notches.
For decent church-goin' women, with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces.
Thanks for "Kill a Queer for Christ" stickers.
Thanks for laboratory AIDS.
Thanks for Prohibition and the war against drugs.
Thanks for a country where nobody's allowed to mind their own business.
Thanks for a nation of finks.
Yes, thanks for all the memories-- all right let's see your arms!
You always were a headache and you always were a bore.
Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

[Digger]

8. Thanks for this

piece by Burroughs, one of my favorite writers.

I share the feelings of everyone who posted above; especially about the atrocities commited by Colombus.

Thanksgiving and Christmas? :cry: :thumbsdown: :puke:

[parasim]

12. Hit the nail right on the head!

Thanks!

[liberalmuse]

7. I'm thankful everyday.

I can't stand Thanksgiving because between the gluttony and family members turning my stomach into knots, it's become a holiday I dread, so this year, I'm staying home with my daughter and cooking Mexican food. Besides, I'm strict vegetarian and don't want to put anyone through the ordeal of trying to cook something I can eat, LOL.

Yes, I've had it with turkeys being thrown across the kitchen by an irate hostess (this has happened twice with two different family members), and having to listen to a long-winded, pontificating prayer to some narcissistic god I absolutely loathe for all the slaughtering he gets his chosen people to do for him.

I started going to my friend's parents house a couple years ago, but the rude remarks she makes to her dad and brother, along with the passive aggressive belch she let out at the table last year was the last straw. Thanksgiving sucks, and I don't know why families put themselves through this atrocity (unless you're one of the lucky ones who has a pleasant, non-confrontational family). Gad, I guess I'm down, and probably shouldn't have watched 'Apocalypse Now' on top of that.

[The Zanti Regent]

10. Hey, it's a day off work

I sleep in. After 28 years of seniority, I FINALLY have Friday off too!
I have no desire to do ANYTHING tomorrow except sleep and keep the TV turned off!

[politicat]

11. No... not really. But we sure as heck don't celebrate. Ignore is accurate.

I've got another post on this elsewhere; I'm a mayflower descendent on one side, a fairly recent immigrant on the other. But the whole puritan/disease/genocide/land battles, for lack of better term, creep me out. This is something worth memorializing? I don't think so. I think the Northern Exposure rotten tomatoes are a far more appropriate way to handle this holiday.

None of the "traditional" things apply, anyway. We've no family within even unreasonable distance, our friends all do have local family or went there, we're not into football, parades or maudlin old movies or gluttony. We don't see the point of travelling X hours to spend time in a too crowded, too warm house with too much noise and stressful activities that cause resentment in the women-folk, and all without alcohol. (At least, that's my family. Teetotalers. Men watch sports, women cook and keep track of kids and take care of men's needs, men get pissy when dinner's not ready, the kids get bored and smack one another and scream - or just play and make kid noise, kids get fussy because no one will let them eat because "you'll ruin your dinner", the resentment grows, and by dinner time, everyone's ready to kill, kill, kill or cry, cry, cry. Have I sat through one too many of these? You betcha. And now does anyone wonder why I don't have children?)

We've got movies and I've got the rough draft of another novel stirring and he's got Baulder's Gate, and we've got beer, rum, vodka, nachos, pizza, wine, fruit, salad stuff...

And the phones are getting turned off and the email's staying dark.

I guess you could call that celebrating, but it's what we do on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Independence day, Easter.... We celebrate 19th Amendment day in August, the equinoxes and solstices, Earth day, Arbor day and Martin Luther King's Birthday. Labor Day we spend in whatever secular charity we can find that's having a work day.

Politicat

[Zuni]

13. The celebration of smallpox

that is what the Pilgrims brought with them.

[nofurylike]

15. thank you for telling us that and asking.

i wear a black armband.

i inform/remind people it started as people saying "thank you g*d for a successful massacre."
weep

and so many - truth be told - still really mean that.
weep

i am thankful all days.
but i mourn, all days, my heritage.


peace

[Kellanved]

16. that would be me

No real equivalent in Germany; "Erntedank" isn't celebrated at all in the secular north - and isn't a family event.

Happy Thanksgiving to all celebrating it :hi: .

[OldEurope]

17. And even in the south, which is less secular,

Erntedank is not a family-thing. It´s celebrated in the churches, and it´s just to thank god for another good harvest.

:toast:

[Dr Satan]

18. I dont either

Im not native American, but how could anyone with a conscience celebrate genocide?

[Nikia]

19. I thought the whole Pilgrim/Native American relationship was OK

It was my understanding that the two groups had a tolerant relationship. The Pilgrims were only intersted in setting up their own little community, free of persecution, not claiming all the resources for themselves and killing all that got in their way. The Thanksgiving celebration involved both cultures coming together for the celebration. I don't see what is so bad about that. Some of the other colonists had bad intentions and killed and enslaved many, but that was not the Pilgrims. The European genocide of the Native Americans is unexcusable. If these two cultures would not have met though, I and other DUers would not exist. I celebrate the peacable celebration between two peoples of different culture that was the first Thanksgiving.

[enough]

20. See the other thread going on, same topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=459462

And Mika, THANKS for posting the Borroughs! Cleans the fog right out of the head. Now THAT would make a great invocation around the groaning board.

[hussar]

22. I'm going to be stuffing my face

but I don't celebrate Thanksgiving here or back in the UK, we had a food drive when I was a kid on our harvest festival day and we went round and gave the food to the needy. Now that's what I call celebrating Thankgiving, sure made me feel good.

[randr]

23. Thanksgiving is a Native

celebration. Most North American tribes have a ceremony that takes place in October to give thanks for our planets' providence and to set preparations for next years plantings.
The story of the pilgrams that I was told was:
Finding themselves short of food, due to a lack of farming knowledge, the pilgams realized they were in for a bleak winter and that they faced certain starvation. The local peoples saw this and invited the settlers to share in their harvest festival. The pilgrams were feed and taught what native plants were edible and how to prepare and store them for the upcomeing winter. The pilgrams were thus saved and a bond was made between the imigrants and local tribes.
It is this rite of sharing, both materially and spiritually, that we relect upon on this day.